(Posted by Carmen Continuduro to another list: a retrospective preview of
the advance election situation in 2008 - the next President's final year in
office.)
History was making fast. The fall elections were soon to occur, and Paul
Continuduro was nominated by the socialist party to run for Congress. His
chance for election was most favorable. The street-car strike in San
Francisco had been broken. And following upon it the teamsters' strike had
been broken. These two defeats had been very disastrous to organized labor.
The whole Water Front Federation, along with its allies in the structural
trades, had backed up the teamsters, and all had smashed down ingloriously.
It had been a bloody strike. The police had broken countless heads with
their riot clubs; and the death list had been augmented by the turning
loose of a machine-gun on the strikers from the barns of the Marsden
Special Delivery Company.
In consequence, the men were sullen and vindictive. They wanted blood, and
revenge. Beaten on their chosen field, they were ripe to seek revenge by
means of political action. They still maintained their labor organization,
and this gave them strength in the political struggle that was on. Paul's
chance for election grew stronger and stronger. Day by day unions and more
unions voted their support to the socialists, until even Paul laughed when
the Undertakers' Assistants and the Chicken Pickers fell into line. Labor
became mulish. While it packed the socialist meetings with mad enthusiasm,
it was impervious to the wiles of the old-party politicians. The old-party
orators were usually greeted with empty halls, though occasionally they
encountered full halls where they were so roughly handled that more than
once it was necessary to call out the police reserves.
History was making fast. The air was vibrant with things happening and
impending. The country was on the verge of hard times, caused by a series
of prosperous years wherein the difficulty of disposing abroad of the
unconsumed surplus had become increasingly difficult. Industries were
working short time; many great factories were standing idle against the
time when the surplus should be gone; and wages were being cut right and
left.
Also, the great machinist strike had been broken. Two hundred thousand
machinists, along with their five hundred thousand allies in the
metalworking trades, had been defeated in as bloody a strike as had ever
marred the United States. Pitched battles had been fought with the small
armies of armed strike-breakers put in the field by the employers'
associations; the Black Hundreds, appearing in scores of wide-scattered
places, had destroyed property; and, in consequence, a hundred thousand
regular soldiers of the United States has been called out to put a
frightful end to the whole affair. A number of the labor leaders had been
executed; many others had been sentenced to prison, while thousands of the
rank and file of the strikers had been herded into bull-pens and abominably
treated by the soldiers.
The years of prosperity were now to be paid for. All markets were glutted;
all markets were falling; and amidst the general crumble of prices the
price of labor crumbled fastest of all. The land was convulsed with
industrial dissensions. Labor was striking here, there, and everywhere; and
where it was not striking, it was being turned out by the capitalists. The
media were filled with tales of violence and blood. And through it all the
Black Hundreds played their part. Riot, arson, and wanton destruction of
property was their function, and well they performed it. The whole regular
army was in the field, called there by the actions of the Black Hundreds.
All cities and towns were like armed camps, and laborers were shot down
like dogs. Out of the vast army of the unemployed the strike-breakers were
recruited; and when the strike-breakers were worsted by the labor unions,
the troops always appeared and crushed the unions. Then there was the
militia. As yet, it was not necessary to have recourse to the secret
militia law. Only the regularly organized militia was out, and it was out
everywhere. And in this time of terror, the regular army was increased an
additional hundred thousand by the government.
Never had labor received such an all-around beating. The great captains of
industry, the oligarchs, had for the first time thrown their full weight
into the breach the struggling employers' associations had made. These
associations were practically middle-class affairs, and now, compelled by
hard times and crashing markets, and aided by the great captains of
industry, they gave organized labor an awful and decisive defeat. It was an
all-powerful alliance, but it was an alliance of the lion and the lamb, as
the middle class was soon to learn.
Labor was bloody and sullen, but crushed. Yet its defeat did not put an end
to the hard times. The banks, themselves constituting one of the most
important forces of the Oligarchy, continued to call in credits. The Wall
Street group turned the stock market into a maelstrom where the values of
all the land crumbled away almost to nothingness. And out of all the rack
and ruin rose the form of the nascent Oligarchy, imperturbable,
indifferent, and sure. Its serenity and certitude was terrifying. Not only
did it use its own vast power, but it used all the power of the United
States Treasury to carry out its plans.
The captains of industry had turned upon the middle class. The employers'
associations, that had helped the captains of industry to tear and rend
labor, were now torn and rent by their quondam allies. Amidst the crashing
of the middle men, the small business men and manufacturers, the trusts
stood firm. Nay, the trusts did more than stand firm. They were active.
They sowed wind, and wind, and ever more wind; for they alone knew how to
reap the whirlwind and make a profit out of it. And such profits! Colossal
profits! Strong enough themselves to weather the storm that was largely
their own brewing, they turned loose and plundered the wrecks that floated
about them. Values were pitifully and inconceivably shrunken, and the
trusts added hugely to their holdings, even extending their enterprises
into many new fields - and always at the expense of the middle class.
Thus the summer of 2008 witnessed the virtual death-thrust to the middle
class. Even Paul was astounded at the quickness with which it had been
done. He shook his head ominously and looked forward without hope to the
fall elections.
"It's no use," he said. "We are beaten. The Iron Heel is here. I had hoped
for a peaceable victory at the ballot-box. I was wrong. Wickson was right.
We shall be robbed of our few remaining liberties; the Iron Heel will walk
upon our faces; nothing remains but a bloody revolution of the working
class. Of course we will win, but I shudder to think of it."
And from then on Paul pinned his faith in revolution. In this he was in
advance of his party. His fellow-socialists could not agree with him. They
still insisted that victory could be gained through the elections. It was
not that they were stunned. They were too cool-headed and courageous for
that. They were merely incredulous, that was all. Paul could not get them
seriously to fear the coming of the Oligarchy. They were stirred by him,
but they were too sure of their own strength. There was no room in their
theoretical social evolution for an oligarchy, therefore the Oligarchy
could not be.
"We'll send you to Congress and it will be all right," they told him at one
of our secret meetings.
"And when they take me out of Congress," Paul replied coldly, "and put me
against a wall, and blow my brains out - what then?"
"Then we'll rise in our might," a dozen voices answered at once.
"Then you'll welter in your GORE," was his retort. "I've heard that song
sung by the middle class, and where is it now in its might?"
